Stair riser stickers

[Topplantpot]

I've removed the carpet from my Victorian staircase - underlay was glued on - that was a horrible job to remove. Then I used Peel Tec to remove the paint. Now I'm sanding down the wood (I've a hoover attachment and I'll be using mesh for max dust extraction).
The stairs are damaged - will need to be rebuilt with epoxy filler so they are going to be painted rather than stained.

I'm thinking of a different colour/pattern on the rise, and I've been looking at stair rise stickers on Etsy - they look good in photos, but are they in real life? Are they naff? It's a dark hallway so I think I can get away with imperfection.
Was also considering wallpaper - although that needs to be fitted horizontally, doesn't it?

Any one else done similar?

No experience of this but super impressed at the hard graft you’re putting in. I hope you end up with the staircase of your dreams when it’s finished!

I didn't intend to go this far - I took the carpet up to get rid of moths and then thought why put it back, the job has just snowballed. I've been working my hall/stairs/landing for a year now...I need to finish the job.😂

We put them on our fairly dark stairs. They were a hell of a faff, way more difficult than we anticipated. I like them a lot and most people have thought they were actual tiles.

We used wallpaper on the stairs at our previous home...well, initially I used a vintage border paper in an Art Nouveau pattern that I'd had in my stash for years. There was just sufficient to do all the stairs. It wasn't too much faff to attach and happened to be exactly the right depth for the risers. I gave it several coats of varnish to protect it.

However, after four years of bearing the brunt of our two dogs scratching it as they navigated the stairs (not to mention a careless tradesman with huge feet!), it was starting to look tired. So, ahead of marketing the property for sale, I replaced it but as I'd used all the border paper previously, I used (William Morris) wallpaper left over from decorating the hall instead. I didn't want to stick it horizontally, so had to have joins - I'm a bit OCD so placed the wallpaper width in the centre of each riser with a matching section to each side. It was definitely a faff, but imho it looked good - although I actually preferred the border paper.

Now thinking of stenciling - or wallpapering...

Can I ask how you removed the glue? I’m just about to start the same process and am dreading it!

@Persephoknee I used 3M general purpose adhesive cleaner - it was really effective (tried others and they were crap). Peel Tec which is a paint remover was fine on the thinner layers of adhesive, it's a fab skin safe paint remover and if you have old paint you'll not want to be sanding until you remove the paint.

I've ordered some stencils and some Mylands gold paint. I'm going to try stencilling to make it look like I've applied damask wallpaper. It's a cheap approach, and if it's a disaster, it won't be too hard to put right.

I’ve used a few of their templates for weekend crafts with my niece, and the sizes made it easy to print without fiddling around. If you’re doing kid-friendly projects, the printable stencil design for kids is a nice shortcut because the shapes are already clear and simple, so you can just cut, trace, and get messy with paints without extra prep.

I'm in the middle (well, beginning) of doing my stairs too! I painted them years ago (they looked good for a long time) but they're chipped to hell now. I'm heat stripping the paint. Will need some sort of paint remover to get the bits out of the cracks and after that will sand.

TBH I'm just painting them white again. But always loved this idea!